Fritz Wotruba: Big art show in the Belvedere on the 50th anniversary of his death!

Fritz Wotruba: Big art show in the Belvedere on the 50th anniversary of his death!

Next year, an entire exhibition at Belvedere 21 in Vienna will be dedicated to the work of Fritz Wotruba. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, the “Wotruba International” show will be on view from July 17, 2025 to January 11, 2026. Leadersnet reports that the exhibition focuses on Wotruba's prominent role in the international art world after 1945.

What is special about the exhibition will be the bold spatial architecture, which will enable visitors to experience the exciting dialogues between Wotruba's works and those of his contemporary colleagues. This group includes well-known artists such as Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti and Louise Nevelson. The curated works show how formal reductions became part of a larger discourse about the understanding of sculpture after 1945 Belvedere additional information.

Wotruba's artistic career

But who actually was Fritz Wotruba? Born on April 23, 1907 in Vienna as the youngest of eight children, he grew up in a social democratic environment. His parents, Maria Kotsis and Adolf Wotruba, influenced his early artistic development. After training in an engraving and punching workshop from 1921 to 1925, Wotruba attended the Vienna School of Applied Arts. There he came into contact with the sculptor Anton Hanak, which had a decisive influence on his career Wikipedia.

Wotruba's artistic breakthrough came with his first solo exhibition at the Folkwang Museum in Essen in 1931. Despite political unrest that led him into exile in Switzerland in 1934, Wotruba remained an important player in the art world until his return to Austria in 1945. Here he became a prominent voice of cultural reconstruction in post-war Austria and took over the master class in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Influential works and legacy

Wotruba's work is known for his abstract human bodies made of cuboid, tube and cylindrical shapes. His works offer artistic reflections on people and their special relationships with one another, a topic that has preoccupied many modern artists and thinkers. These questions will be examined in the upcoming exhibition, which will show both Wotruba's sculptures and works by his contemporary colleagues.

Until his death in 1975, Wotruba created important works, including the “Female Cathedral” and the Wotruba Church in Vienna Wall. His legacy lives on not only in the exhibitions, but also in the Fritz Wotruba Promenade in Vienna, which was named after him in the 1990s. The upcoming exhibition at Belvedere 21 promises to make a valuable contribution to his lasting influence on the Austrian art scene.